Hey all,

So many questions abt migrating Live CDs on to USB pendrives. I wonder why the DSL (or any other Linux distro) group has not come up with any Live USB kind of version (Hope I am wrong)

I mean why do the hd-install command only after having a LiveCD???

Why not have a Live USB version directly ???

High time is it not ??

Opinions anyone ???

Please no harsh words!!! This is just meant to be food for thought/ideas. I
am just being a little creative here, not trying to point out things.....I love DSL as much as you do.

So, answers anyone .........

Browse on over the their home page and check it out
http://damnsmalllinux.org/

Hi,

They are offering a pre-installed USB pendrive. I was thinking of having something like a complete package (similar to a cd iso-image) for USB alone. Could it be like an RPM? or something "like" an ISO for Live USB.

The concept about mounting an iso CD image as a loop device is feasible. Thereon, is there any way of having an INSTALL script of some sort in the mounted CD Filesystem to carry out USB install.

I do know that there exists a facility 4 USB install in the desktop menus.

I think you missed the point there.

The problem is "How to boot directly to a pendrive Linux?"
Copying the contents of a cd isn't that difficult, booting is.
Use any iso buster around to copy the contents.
You will always need a floppy to do it.
That's bad...

This last time i tried copying all the files and folders in the cd-iso package onto the usb pendrive (ext3), note that this wasn't an iso image transfer.
Made a boot floppy (usb-boot) using rawwrite.
But, when booted to usb some folders and files were reported missing (sorry cannot remember the names:-().
Looks like it is necessary to use iso-image transfer technique and not file folder copy technique. Am i right ??? :-?
I am kind of busy right here so if someone can try out Mr. Eyeliner's suggestion, it would be gr8.
One more thing let me make this a little bit more difficult:
Suppose there is a system with no linux, only windows and empty ext3 fs and u wan't to install linux from just an cd-iso file in fat32 onto the ext3 fs. No CD-burning please :-D. Ofcourse u may use a linux rescue floppy...... or any other means. What u do ???
Think on..........................................................Its good for u!!
Hint: See the previous thread i posted ;-)
Bye,

here is one way to do it, however this is with Knoppix

http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/HdBasedHowTo

without an exisiting unix or linux installation you would have to work in windows and certain files would have to be extraced from the image in order for the installation to work.

I love running DSL from a USB pendrive !
As long as your BIOS can boot from USB devices, your in business.
Runs just the live CD does..

If your bios CAN'T boot from usb, there is a boot floppy image just for running from a USB device.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/dis...ootusb-0.8.img

So, you can still have your OS running from a pendrive ..

I have a 512MB pendrive, chock full of goodness..
Firefox, T-Bird mail, Gimp 2.0.4, Webmin, Qcad, Python, Perl, gtk2, loads of Fluxbox themes,
Doom, Quake2, Railroad-Tycoon2, Heretic2 , mp3's , loads of Ham radio apps, nmap, nessus, AutoScan, Airsnort,
Abiword, Openoffice, Inkscape, Gaim, aMSN, gkrellm, pan, PureFTP, audacity, MPlayer, Xine, Blender,
Bluefish, XChat, Opera, Samba, RCFirewall, Skype, Ymess, loads of dockapps, etc..)
Running in DSL , all from a pendrive .. I need a 1 gig Pen !!

My 128 and 256 USBkeys work as well...

DSL is one incredible linux OS..

73
ke4nt

ke4nt...

Sounds like you are having good success with DSL on your pen... would you care to offer any links to primers on doing this, or perhaps post a tiny how-to for the community. I've got a 128mb usb 2.0 drive, and would love to put DSL or some linux distro on there. The DSL isos look to be only about 49 megabytes, but would I want the "embedded" variety, or the default, etc... how to put this iso onto the disk? Can this be done through Windows?
Thanks in advance for any tips you are willing to offer!

Thanks.

There are several walk-throughs about installing DSL onto a USB perdrive
in the forums at damnsmalllinux.org .

Here is a link I found in the forums at damnsmall.
http://fuzzymunchkin.dyndns.org/tdot...fob/index.php3

And either one will work as a source, since the .iso in the embedded version
is the same as the downloadable one.. You'll need to burn a CD from one of the sources.

73
ke4nt

So I followed the steps to a "T" using the link you offered, and had no success (although was introduced to some interesting tools like Daemon Tools)... I go to boot off the USB pen and my BIOS waits to boot, then says

"Removes disks or other media.
Press any key to restart"

hitting any key just comes back to that message, which makes me think it's part of the USB that's saying that... Any ideas out there?

Are you sure your usb drive is already bootable? If not then you can make it bootable first in windows(or dos) using the proprietary tool from HP http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/fi...oad/20306.html
If your usb drive is not listed don't worry,mine is not.It is known to work on most drives.

Then start DSL and as root # /usr/sbin/dsl-usbinstall

This was how I did it. Hope it helps.

according to the instructions offered up in a link in the previous posts, it seems as though they say to use the HP app to format the pen disk, as FAT (not FAT32), and make sure to not make it bootable... Should I be enabling bootability with this format?

The purpose of formatting the pen drive as FAT is to test if it will boot on your pc so go ahead if you have not tested it to boot.Then when it boots okay you install dsl on the pen drive with the FAT .